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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947418">Stan</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamatheatrekid/pseuds/iamatheatrekid'>iamatheatrekid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Just Stan Not-a-Man [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Coming Out, Gender Identity Disorder, Non-Binary Stanley Uris, Outdated Terms, also don't make fun of how stan comes out, because i'm just the worst, it's similar to how i came out, so much dialogue, supportive friends, wow i can't believe the losers invented they/them pronouns</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:54:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,390</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947418</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamatheatrekid/pseuds/iamatheatrekid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As much as Stan wanted to tell all of his friends about what he was thinking, just let all of his thoughts out, it terrified him. So, he avoided it as best as he could.<br/>But sometimes things just have to happen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Just Stan Not-a-Man [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Man</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>yeah it's the third part of this and it still sucks</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Being around friends is a great way to forget about your problems; or indulge in them and talk about what’s going on. With the losers, it was easy to do both. You can be laughing together, say something that’s been bugging you, get support, Richie will make a joke, and then move on to laughing again. It was a great system that worked mostly every time. They had more serious conversations, especially in the few months after It, but even those weren’t too scary. Well, Stan was scared of them.</p><p>He didn’t like participating in talk-about-your-problems-time when they were all together. Since Beverly had moved away and only came back a select amount of weekends, he wanted to use their time together as the one time he didn’t have to worry about everything else going on in his life. He spent every quiet and serious time they had together sitting in pure anxiety because of having to think about how he also has a lot of homework to do, and his parents are also seeming more distant, and he also still has nightmares. It was too much.</p><p>The others tried to get him to talk, but it was clear they wouldn’t get anything out of him. When he needed them, they would know. He wouldn’t talk and he wouldn’t engage with them, and then he would just break down. And they were inching towards that time.</p><p>The energy in the clubhouse was good. Eddie catching Beverly up on gossip, Bill and Richie laughing over some comic book, Ben and Mike doing homework. Everyone was perfect. Except Stan sat alone in his usual spot with his heart throbbing inside his chest. He wasn’t talking much to anyone, even Richie. In this moment he just sat and looked at the floor.</p><p>“Hey, Stan!” Ben called, getting his attention off of how annoying it was that the wooden floor wasn’t perfectly straight. “Did you already finish the social studies?”</p><p>“Yeah, I did it in class.”</p><p>Mike laughed. “Of course he did.”</p><p>“Golden Boy,” Beverly teased from across the room.</p><p>Stan saw Richie glance at him and let himself get caught staring into his eyes. He tuned out the others laughter and teasing and focused on how Richie looked at him. His eyes were big and pleading and Stan just sighed. “Tell them,” Richie mouthed. Stan looked away.</p><p>He ignored Richie’s suggestions. He avoided Richie all together. As much as he wanted to talk to the losers about what was going on with him, he was scared of how it would turn out. He was supposed to be the one who had it all together. He was the one the others could turn to. He was Stan the Man. Except he wasn’t.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. You Can</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was weird how it happened. They were playing a board game, all of them joking around and having fun. No one had even said anything about it. And then Stan snapped.</p><p>He was looking at Richie. Richie was rolling the dice and making a show of it. With his eyes on Richie and his impulse control gone, he said, “Hey, you know how there are boys and girls?”</p><p>Everyone stopped and turned to him. Stan opted to look at Richie’s hands still clamped around the dice. He hadn’t really thought about where he was going with that. All of the times he practiced this conversation in his head, that wasn’t the opening he picked. If he looked at the losers, he would see them all caught off guard. Stan hadn’t spoken much in the past two weeks, and certainly nothing as absurd as that. Beverly was the first to say, “Yeah..?”</p><p>“I...um,” He started. “Well there’s this thing where someone doesn’t feel like either of them--like they don’t have a gender really, and it's called a gender identity disorder. And I think I have that.”</p><p>They were all quiet. Stan wasn’t looking at anyone so he didn’t have any idea of what they were thinking. They were all mentally screaming at him to look up, and he figured that if he did, maybe they would all speak to him. So he did. He had tears in his eyes and hoped that they didn’t see. But they were all looking at him with confused expressions, not even noticing the fact that he was near his breaking down point. The only one without the expression was Richie. He was looking at all of them, trying to get a reading of what they were thinking.</p><p>Eddie was the first one to talk. “You don’t think you have a gender?”</p><p>Stan nodded. “H-how d-di-di-did you f-fuh-fig-gure it out?” Bill asked.</p><p>“It was really my Bar Mitzvah. I didn’t really realize until then that I didn’t care about being a man or anything and I think it’s because I’m not one. I think that there’s a lot of pressure by society to be a certain person based on what your gender is and I just want to be able to be myself and not have to worry about that. It’s stupid, I know, and maybe-”</p><p>“It’s not stupid,” Bev said.</p><p>“No, no, it actually makes a lot of sense,” Ben said. “You’re right, there is a lot of pressure to be a certain person based on your gender and so not having one does give you freedom to be yourself.”</p><p>“But what if I’m just being dramatic and overthinking it? People shouldn’t have to change their gender to be able to wear whatever they want or act however they want or anything, so maybe I am still a boy and-”</p><p>Richie said loudly, “Stan.”</p><p>He hadn’t realized that he was shaking. Now he was letting all of his thoughts out, the mountain of fears he had been holding back was coming down and spilling out of him. He had hot tears rolling down his face and his hands were sweating. “You don’t have to be a boy if you don’t feel like it,” Richie continued. “And you can be whatever gender and stil wear the clothes that you like to wear and act however you want. It’s just how you feel inside.”</p><p>Stan had looked down. He listened to what Richie said but there was still that voice in the back of his head that was saying the opposite, that was saying that it wasn’t true, that was reapeating his own words louder and louder. </p><p>“Do you like it when people call you a boy?” Mike asked.</p><p>Stan hesitated before he shook his head. “Then you’re not a boy.”</p><p>He let out a sigh. Bill was sitting beside him and he put his hand on Stan’s shoulder. They sat like that for a while, Stan trying to calm down his breathing and everyone else trying to find out the right thing to say next. They still had so many questions and they didn’t know how they could possibly return to their game.</p><p>“D-do you w-wuh-want us t-to c-c-cuh-call you a d-different name?”</p><p>Stan shrugged. “Stan’s fine,” he said.</p><p>The gate had opened for questions. “What about pronouns?” Mike asked. “Saying ‘he’ is pretty specific to boys.”</p><p>That caused all of them to stop and think. “Well there aren’t any gender neutral pronouns,” Stan said. </p><p>Richie suggested, “We could make something up.”</p><p>“Like what?” Eddie rolled his eyes. </p><p>“I don’t know, like ‘ye’?”</p><p>Stan laughed and everyone sighed in relief. They could laugh again. “No way, idiot,” Eddie snapped at Richie. “We could just say ‘Stan’ and not use any pronouns.”</p><p> </p><p>Stan furrowed his brow at that idea. It would be tedious, but it could work.</p><p>Ben asked, “What about ‘they’?”</p><p>“That’s not singular though. I’m only one person.”</p><p>Ben shrugged. “So? It’s actual pronouns so it wouldn’t sound weird.”</p><p>Stan bit his lip. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.</p><p>“W-wuh-we c-could try it out?” Bill suggested.</p><p>Stan looked at him. “M-m-might as well, r-r-ruh-right?”</p><p>“And we can change it if you hate it,” Bev said.</p><p>Stan looked at all of them. All of his friends. All looking at him, putting all of their attention on him. Giving him simpathetic smiles and warm eyes. His friends that were going to help him through this, help him figure out what was going on. His friends. They were the best friends in the whole world.</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>They smiled.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>yeah the series is done and maybe I'll go back and actually make it good at some point.<br/>I just really wanted to squeeze out some nb stan content.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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